


I long to feel my heart burned open wide

by objectlesson



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Pendragon has Mommy Issues, Caretaking, Cuddling, Dirty Talk, First Time, Huddling For Warmth, Just the Tip, M/M, Pining, Rimming, Scent Kink, Sharing a Bed, Touch starved Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:27:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Arthur cups the earthenware bowl in his hands and slurps the whole thing down with a speed that borders on desperation, all the while staring at the spoon disappearing inside Merlin’s mouth time and time again as he eats his own. It’s stupid, to be jealous of a spoon. Just like it’s stupid to freeze to death after only a few hours of riding in the wind-whipped rain. Just like it’s stupid to be in love with your servant boy you can’t marry even if you wanted to.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 365





	I long to feel my heart burned open wide

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in less than two hours while drinking plum wine mixed with gin so like, it's possible it doesn't make sense. That being said I think its very sexy!!! some fast paced wild porn for you!!! It happened because I think a lot bout Arthur being touch starved and also how Merlin is not just his servant and his wife but also his mommy. We like a Milf Merlin in this house.

—-

They’re venturing north to recover a knight for ransom, and Arthur has not stopped shivering since the sun set and cloaked the mountains in darkness. This happens to him: his teeth start to chatter and then he cannot stop them. The vibration overtakes his body and he’s lost to the relentless lurching shudder until he’s submerged himself entirely in hot water to thaw. Merlin knows from experience, so of course he notices. 

“We should stop at a tavern tonight,” he says, shooting Arthur a look over his shoulder as he urgently trots his horse ahead of him, hanging onto the saddle not because he is a weak rider, but only because he _thinks_ he is. It fills Arthur with equal amounts of endearment and frustration. _You don’t need to do that—your legs are stronger than you think. Your mare listens to you. She loves you._

He does not say such things, though, because they sound far too much like _I notice your legs and trust your judgement the way an animal might and of course, I love you too._ Instead he shakes his head and says, “We should keep riding. Every second is precious, he could—”

“The horses are cold,” Merlin lies, mouth twisting into an almost pitying half-smile. “And hungry.” 

Arthur frowns, shoving his tongue between his teeth so they quit clicking together and giving his weakness away. “If _you’re_ cold and hungry, Merlin, no need to blame horses,” he forces out in a shaky voice. It’s ridiculous, really, that someone as slight as Merlin, who has virtually _no_ meat on his bones, is better at sustaining the cold than Arthur is. He sucks the inside of his cheek, and follows Merlin as he turns his horse on a side-path and towards the light of a pub house. 

“Sorry, sire,” he sighs, with a long-suffering tone to his voice that belies he _knows_ Arthur _knows_ this is all for his benefit, in the end, and that they’re just going through the motions to save face for an imaginary audience. “I’d like a warm bed tonight too much to pass up the opportunity.” 

Merlin is, of course, continuing the charade out of sheer stubbornness, which is somehow more insulting than just giving Arthur a proper hard time for suffering in the cold. And that makes it all the more painful as Arthur tries his hardest to rub blood back into his palms, willing himself back to life so that he can actually ask for a room once they get there through the chatter of his teeth.

—-

Merlin ends up being the one to order them mead and hot soup, since he can actually talk without stuttering. Arthur cups the earthenware bowl in his hands and slurps the whole thing down with a speed that borders on desperation, all the while staring at the spoon disappearing inside Merlin’s mouth time and time again as he eats his own. It’s stupid, to be jealous of a spoon. Just like it’s stupid to freeze to death after only a few hours of riding in the wind-whipped rain. Just like it’s stupid to be in love with your servant boy you can’t marry even if you wanted to. Arthur chews the inside of his cheek, and prays for his teeth to quit rattling in his skull. “Are you still cold?!” Merlin asks incredulously at some point, cocking his head, tongue sweeping over his chapped lower lip with infuriatingly idle obscenity. 

“No,” Arthur lies.

Merlin steers them to the fire and nearly gets them both killed after telling some thick, drunk warlord types they need to move so that his friend can properly thaw. Arthur would be annoyed, if he wasn’t so moved. Not just by Melin’s foolish bravery, but by the way he _cares_ so much. Every single day, he want to grab Merlin by this perfect fucking face and shake him, tell him _I am not worth such devotion, you know._ But every day, he says nothing. It’s easier to live here in the nebulous grey space, where he insults Merlin to disguise the way he loves him more than anything on this earth, than it is to show even the slightest fraction of himself. 

Somehow, Merlin manages to win the knife-scarred table closest to the fire with nothing more than a rumpled shirt. “How you don’t end up with black eyes at every tavern we go to, I will never know,” Arthur says, holding his frozen hands over the flames and wincing at the sting. 

“I am scrappier than you ever give me credit for, sire,” says easily, sloping the remainder of his own soup into Arthur’s bowl, and holding it out to reheat in the fire. 

—-

The room Merlin books them has only one bed, because the north and its bitter chill _hate_ Arthur and want him to suffer. “Well then,” Merlin says, dropping his pack to the ground. “I suppose I will make the best of this very inviting looking hardwood floor.” 

“No you will _not,”_ Arthur says, wrenching the quilt off of the bed and wadding it up before tossing it to Merlin. “Make yourself comfortable on this, at least.”

It feels _awful_ to be alone on the bed though, like it always does when they’re outside of Camelot. It’s part of why Arthur loves dragging Merlin on hunting trips, he realized some time ago amid a cloud of shame: he forever longs for an excuse for them to share space, sleep on the same surface, press their outer arms together in the secret of the night like an accident. Arthur doesn't _want_ to rent rooms in taverns because they destroy this illusion, the _necessity_ for him and Merlin to lie side by side. 

Plus, he’s _cold_ without that quilt. Dangerously cold, perhaps. He cannot top shivering, even with soup and mead warming him from the inside, the memory of the fire still fresh on his skin. His ears are trained to every sound Merlin makes, so he tracks his sighs, his tosses, until finally he cannot stand it anymore. He rakes the sheets off of himself, breath a plume of white in the darkness as he forces out, “come on, then. Get up here before I fucking die.” 

“What is _wrong_ with you,” Merlin asks as he clambers in with the quilt around his narrow shoulders, studying Arthur like he’s actually _worried_ he might freeze as he flips the weight of the blanket over both of their bodies and draws close. “It’s really _not_ that cold, you know. Are you sick? Enchanted?” 

Arthur tries his hardest to still the reflexive lurches of his shivering body, because every one means his knees knock up against Merlin’s, their flesh brushing in too many places for him to be trusted with. “I am _not_ enchanted,” he huffs out through grit teeth. “Only very cold.” 

Merlin settles closer, facing Arthur and exhaling over his mouth, breath mead-sweet and travel-salty and so fucking good it makes Arthur have to shut his eyes and swallow his own drool. “It’s just. _I’m_ not cold,” he says. 

“Well maybe something is wrong with _you,_ then, and not me,” Arthur offers. “It’s indisputably freezing.” 

“Hmm,” Merlin says, rolling onto his back, eyes the only bright things in this whole black room. Arthur wants to touch him so badly, like he always does. Normally he would work it into some prank, tease him, humiliate him just to get his hands on him, but he can hardly move right now. He just grips fists in the sheets, shivering and sucking up air in desperate lungfuls. “Perhaps it’s because I’m accustomed to sleeping on the floor while frost builds on the _inside_ of my windows and you’re an arrogant prince who’s been spoiled rotten his whole life and never had to go to bed shivering,,” Merlin offers, shrugging. “I dunno. Just an idea.” 

“Merlin,” Arthur grits out. “Shut up.” 

Merlin doesn’t, though, he rolls back over, so close this time Arthur’s breath catches in his throat as they touch. “Come here,” Merlin says firmly. “Before you perish and I get charged with treason for companying you out here where you and your delicate sensibilities cannot survive.” Then he does the unthinkable: he reaches out and _touches_ Arthur, curls an arm around his shoulder and rolls him in towards the delicious heat of his body. 

Arthur wants to fight his way out of the insistent grip, but _god._ It feels so fucking good. Merlin is like a furnace, radiating heat in waves, infernal and glorious as he rubs his big palms up and down Arthur’s back, trying to create friction to warm him up. It doesn’t make _sense_ , he shouldn’t _be_ so hot when he’s so _small,_ but he _is_ and it’s too wonderful for Arthur to dream of resisting, so he just. Gives up. “Ugh. I hate to say it, but. S’nice,” Arthur admits, snuggling closer and daring to lay his hand on the outside of Merlin’s elbow, very very gingerly. 

Merlin flinches, hissing. “Your hands are like ice.” 

“Well _sorr-y._ I told you I was freezing to death,” Arthur growls, sneaking a shaky inhalation from Merlin’s neck. He smells so fucking good, he _always_ does. Not like anything but like himself, really, because he’s a slob and bad about washing and it should be disgusting but Arthur is in love with him so he _likes_ it. The intoxicating scent of Merlin’s oily hair and days old, stale sweat. He wishes he lived in a universe where he could bury his nose in it and die there, the taste of salt and spice on his tongue, but unfortunately he is the crown prince of Camelot and he’s not allowed such indulgences. “I am _attempting_ to warm them but it’s hard when you keep _moving around_ and letting cold air in.” 

Merlin stills, his hand cupped sweetly on the back of Arthur’s neck. “You can put them inside my shirt,” he offers like that is a normal thing to say to someone and Arthur is just supposed to _survive_ it. He sputters, legs tangling with Merlin’s as he tries and fails to kick away from his shockingly firm grip. 

“Do _what?”_

_“_ Your hands,” Merlin says slowly, as if Arthur is a stupid child. “You can put them inside my shirt. Where it’s warmest.” 

Arthur says nothing because he cannot speak. He’s just thinking about the pale, soft splay of Merlin’s stomach, how he’s seen is so few times because Merlin very cruelly hides himself behind layers and leaves fucking everything up to the imagination, which is unfortunate, because Arthur happens to have a very active one of those. His heart pounds in his chest, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he makes a wordless, affronted sound in his throat as Merlin rolls his eyes in the darkness and ignores him, reaching out and fumbling between their bodies to quite literally take matters into his own hands. 

He finds Arthur’s wrists, encircles then, and without another word shoves his tremulous hands beneath the hem of his own tunic. “There,” he says, exhaling and expanding his ribcage so it fits the cold slats of Arthur’s fingers, wincing at the contact. “Better?” 

“No,” Arthur bites out, but it is such an obvious lie he can only sustain it for about three seconds before he frowns, sighs, and admits, “actually, _yes.”_ He tries to be angry, but it feels so fucking good to touch Merlin’s bare skin he cannot be anything but grateful, really. 

Merlin sighs. “Good. I was getting sick of your complaining.” 

—-

Time passes in syrupy, glorious slow motion as warmth returns to Arthur in delicious waves, a faint prickle like something once dead waking up from a long slumber. His hands lay over the steady rise and fall of Merlin’s torso as Merlin holds him close and rubs his back. As he gets warmer and stops shivering so much, Merlin’s touch slows and sweetens, so that eventually he’s just drawing his fingers up and down Arthur’s spine very gently, half-asleep as he twitches against him. It’s perfect. Arthur never wants this moment to stop. He wants to live right here, in this awful, narrow, uncomfortable, straw-stuffed tavern mattress as long as Merlin keeps _touching_ him. As long as _he_ gets to keep touching _Merlin._ He rubs his face against his chest, inhales from his skin, flexes his palm against that insanely soft skin, getting away with _so much_ because it’s blessedly dark and neither of them are fully awake or fully sober. 

He thinks Merlin has actually drifted off entirely as his hand stops its steady motion on Arthur’s shoulder blade, heavy and hot, but then he clears his throat and murmurs: “sort of can’t believe you’re not giving me a hard time for like. Being a giant girl or whatever.” 

“Well,” Arthur murmurs, licking his lips. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that.” 

“Still. Didn’t think you’d ever share a bed with me. Or fancy a cuddle,” he explains, breath hot at Arthur’s brow, heart picking up and thudding under the weight of his splayed palm. It makes Arthur nervous, so he shifts his hand down, moving the coarse hair beneath Merlin’s navel against the grain. It’s _stomach-_ turningly intimate, and as a result his cock twitches reflexively in his trousers. Arthur frowns, shifting his hips to conceal it. 

“Well. I guess you were wrong. S’different when the knights aren't here and it's just you and me. Plus. I—I don't know. I never got touched as a kid. My dad hugged me once a year, maybe,” Arthur admits, hoping that redirecting this conversation back to something true but _familial_ will cast him in a more honorable light. He doesn’t want Merlin to think he’s taking advantage, even if he is. He needs Merlin to continue to think he’s good, and special, and noble enough to be a king worth believing in. 

“That’s terrible,” Merlin mumbles, sounding genuinely upset. He shifts to move his hand again, rubbing comforting circles into Arthur’s back and curling closer, burying this nose into his hair. “My mom hugged and kissed me every day, even when I was a teenager. Even _Gaius_ and I embrace all the time—we need touch, I think. Humans. It keeps us sane.” 

So suddenly, Arthur is choked up. He hates it, frantically swallowing the thickness in his throat as he presses into Merlin, feeling like he can’t _stop_ soaking up the heat of him, the solidity, the dirty-salty sweat smell, even if it’s driving him mad. “I always thought maybe if my mom had lived, she’d be the only to hold me. I’d imagine sometimes, when I was a child and I couldn’t sleep, that she’d hold my head in her lap and stroke my hair and sing me things.” 

“Oh, Arthur,” Merlin breathes, carding his fingers up through the snarls at the back of Arthur’s neck, untangling them gently, making Arthur’s skin explode in a wave of blissful shivers. “You know I can’t sing—I doubt you’d want me to, if m’honest, but. If you’d like, I can touch your hair.” 

“Really?” Arthur says, even though he _means_ for something more barbed to come out. It’s hard to remember to bully him, when Merlin is sifting fingers though the oily strands, rubbing over his scalp, the best and most absolving thing he’s ever felt. His hand begins to sweat where it’s spread over Merlin’s stomach, and he swallows thickly, eyes stinging. 

“Yes. Here,” Merlin murmurs, razing his nails over Arthur’s cheek, down his neck, to his jaw before pressing up through the fringe over his brow again. “If it’s too much you can tell me to stop.” 

Arthur closes his eyes. He doesn’t want him to stop. He _never_ wants him to stop. He thinks if anyone _else_ did this to him he might imagine it was his mother’s hands, but it’s _Merlin_ so he imagines nothing, except that he might get to have this every night. The heat of his skin under his palm, the drag of his fingertips over his skull like a promise. _Please, please, please_ he thinks helplessly, rubbing his face into Merlin’s rough tunic, shifting close, closer, as close as he can get away with. 

They carry on this way for a while, and it’s _maddening_. The dark presses in, hiding them from everything save for the creeping light of the moon as she tumbles in through the window panes, reminding Arthur that beyond this bed is nothing but _cold,_ and it’s _alright_ he’s touching Merlin, because this time he needs it to survive. He lets his hand brush up and down his ribcage, feeling his bones, his breath, his infernal heat. He lets the impossible wreck of them bleed into him, so the lines between their bodies blur and fade, and there in the muddy haze Arthur forgets himself—he forgets _everything,_ really. This could be a dream, a hallucination, a wish made true with want. He’s achingly and distractingly hard against his own thigh at the same time the universe has melted away into nothingness, the cold stolen by a heat so purifying it’s burnt reality away alongside the ice, and he feels like anything could happen. Without even realizing it, Arthur pushes the very tip of his little finger beneath the laces of Merlin’s trousers, to the burning skin beneath like a revelation. As soon as he does it, they both freeze.

But before Arthur can rush to come up with an excuse, _it’s cold my hands are numb I’m half-asleep I’m mead drunk I don’t know what I’m doing—_ Merlin gasps, and shudders closer.

“Arthur,” he breathes, mouth skidding down to Arthur’s hairline, opening there in the pantomime of a kiss, fingers curling into a fist and tugging at his hair. Then he nods closer, lower, until Arthur cannot stand the huff of his breath over his parted lips any longer without tasting it. 

He cants up and presses their mouths flush, and Merlin comes apart against him. Now _he_ is the one shivering, now _his_ teeth are lost to chatters. Arthur shoves his hand lower and finds everything sweat-dewy burning hot, Melin’s cock twitching and hard as he greedily curls his fingers around it, stroking from base to tip. The crown is sticky-wet and Arthur groans into the gasping slick of Merlin’s mouth at that, heart pounding as he rubs his fingers over it, stunned at how _sensitive_ Merlin is, bucking and whimpering at the direct contact. “You’re so fucking wet,” he hisses, voice snagged in awe. “I should have known. I should have _known_ you wanted me back. You follow me everywhere, you put my _hands_ on your bare skin and expect me to live through it— _Merlin_ , god,” he chokes out, fucking those terrible lips open with his tongue in feverish pulses as he pinches at Merlin’s foreskin, makes him writhe and squirm. “You didn’t have to let me _freeze to_ death to have me, you know.” 

Merlin huffs out a desperate, frantic laugh as Arthur licks his way down the column of his throat, positively drunk on the taste of him, the way he’s fucking his fist in clumsy bucks. “Well it worked, didn’t it?” he jokes, pushing one hand through the newly sweat-damp hair at Arthur’s brow, reaching down between his own legs and finding Arthur’s wrist with his other. He draws him down, beneath the weight of his balls and to the sweat-damp, searing crease of his ass. Arthur’s breath snags in his throat, his stomach drops. “You can have me however you want me. You can take anything from me,” Merlin murmurs against his cheek before licking it. HIs hole pulses against the gentle prod of Arthur’s fingers, and the sensation makes his heart go mad in his chest. _God._ He cannot believe this is happening, he cannot fathom the way Merlin is slack under him, thighs spread and begging. It makes him grin wide in this way he cannot contain, laughter tight in his throat as he rubs his face against Merlin’s, kisses the corner of his mouth, grinds against him as he works a finger into the hot clutch of his body. 

“You’d let me fuck you like this?” he asks in murmur, crooking that finger and loving the way Merlin opens up, throwing his head back with his face lovely and pale in the moonlight, screwed up into an expression somewhere between pleasure and overwhelm. “Let me come inside you?” 

“Yes,” Merlin whimpers, bearing down on the intrusion, eyes flashing in the dark. “I dream about it. Pray for it.” 

“God,” Arthur chokes out, kissing him rough, putting teeth in it and fucking deeper into the terrible heat of him. “You’ll give me anything. You’re my servant. You’re _mine.”_ he murmurs, rucking open the laces of Merlin’s shirt so he can lick over his sternum, chasing the smell of his sweat where it’s richest, under his arms. 

_“_ All yours,” Merlin promises. And _this_ is why he’s so devoted, this is why he never would have listened to Arthur if he’d told him he wasn’t worth it, just like he’s imagined doing so many times before. _This_ is why Merlin doesn’t listen—it’s because he loves Arthur back. As if he means to prove that very point, Merlin makes a fierce fist in Arthur’s hair and drags him up to stare at him, cheeks flushed and gaze somber in its intensity. “And you are mine. No one else knows what you need—how you need it. It’s I, alone, who understands how to take care of you, Arthur. How to touch you just right.” 

And perhaps it strikes Arthur so firmly in the chest because it is the most cuttingly _true_ thing anyone has ever said to him _._ He has nothing to say in return that will not come out snagged around sudden tears, though, so instead he pitches forward, kissing Merlin deep and hungry as he fingers his tight hole, groaning art the way it spasms around his knuckles as Merlin eventually reaches between their bodies and brings himself off in a few furious strokes. The come clings to his tunic when Arthur presses their brows together so that he can look, and it’s _so_ fucking pretty and pearlescent in the moonlight he decides he _wants it,_ and shifts down the bed to lick up the bitter shine. 

Merlin shucks his trousers and rolls over after that, backside so pale and perfect in the night Arthur sits on his heels for a few seconds shaking and staring, fists in the sheets because he’s not sure he can touch something so beautiful, even though he was thrust deep inside it with desperate fingers just moments ago. “Come on me,” Merlin says into the pillow, reaching back and palming himself open, crack dusted in dark hair matted down in sweat. “Please, Arthur.” 

He ends up soaking him with spit first, burying his face there and gripping the moon-white curve of Merlin’s cheek with his fist as he licks him open, desperate and filthy. The taste of him is overwhelming, the sort of thing he will _die_ with, even if he never gets the privilege of doing this again, fucking up into the tight ring of muscle and drooling in frothing mouthfuls until Merlin is crying out into sheets, bucking his hips, humping the bed even though he already came. Arthur cannot get _enough;_ he could do this for hours, for a _lifetime._ But he’s also so achingly hard he’s _dizzy_ with it, cock heavy and painful as he grips it. Eventually he pulls away, chin raw and spit-wet as he hikes Merlin up against him and aligns himself, cockhead nudging at the perfect, puffy glisten of his hole until he breaches him.

He doesn’t sheath himself entirely—Merlin is too tight and he’s afraid he’ll hurt him without something slicker than spit, so instead he just takes himself in hand and jacks off like that, holding Merlin down so he cannot back himself up onto the entirety. When he finishes, though, gasping into the sweat-tacky ditch between Merlin’s scapulae, Merlin stops moving and just _takes_ it, sobbing there on the bed with his thighs quaking, his voice torn but only _half-_ silenced with the pillow as Arthur spills and spills. Then he collapses against him in a panting wreck, rubbing his hands up and down his sides beneath his tunic, memorizing the heave of his breath, the unsteady gales expanding and contracting him, elemental in their beauty. In moments his legs give out and he collapses, getting come everywhere as withdraws from Merlin’s body in a slick white mess. 

Merlin is an _awful_ servant and a generally dirty person to boot, so he doesn’t bother to clean them up. He strips out of his clothes and snuggles right back up against Arthur all sweaty and hot , kissing him deep, throwing his thigh over his hip and trapping him against the wet mattress before dragging the blankets back up around their bodies and tucking them both in. He’s shockingly _heavy_ for such a slender man, and in seconds Arthur starts to burn up. 

“It’s _sweltering,”_ he complains, kicking the quilt off and exposing them to the night. “You’re going to suffocate me.”

“You were about to _freeze_ to death an hour ago,” Merlin reminds him, his grin so fucking brilliant and wide it makes Arthur’s heart stop and stutter in his chest, so much so he has to lean in and bits the corner of it punishingly lest he die right there. He has never loved anything so much in his _life._ “Was it all a ruse to get me to hold you like you were a spoiled little boy and I was your mother?” 

“Shut up. No. I was genuinely freezing,” Arthur admits, throwing his arms around Merlin and drawing him close, crushing him into his chest so that he cannot get away, even if he tried. Luckily he’s not trying. He’s kissing Arthur’s neck, his sternum, touching him everywhere like he’s wanted this as desperately as Arthur has wanted it, for as _long._ It makes Arthur feel choked up and tremulous to behold, so he buries his face in Merlin’s sweaty hair, and sucks him in in greedy lungfuls. “I’m just _not_ anymore.Things change, keep up.” 

“Well,” Merlin mumbles, voice coming out muffled as Arthur squeezes him. “M’sort of chilly now, to be honest.” 

“I have plenty of ways to warm you up, which _don’t_ involve that gross quilt,” Arthur tells him, letting go just long enough to flip Merlin over and pin him on his back. He gazes down at him, raising his brows and grinning, so elated he feels like his chest could split open and release one hundred birds into the sky in a shrieking frenzy. “Allow me to demonstrate,” he murmurs. 

And for once, Merlin actually listens to him in favor of mouthing off. 


End file.
